Organizing Your Debt - Part 1

Chapter 1:

Organize The Paper

Synopsis

When the mail arrives, make certain it goes in one place. Lost bills can be the cause of uninvited late fees and may damage your credit rating. Whether it’s a drawer, a box, or a file, be ordered and make certain other people in the household do the same. Size is likewise important. If you get a lot of mail, utilize an area that won’t get filled up too fast.

Make It Neat

Your bills come every month whether you wish them to or not. Setting them in a cubby hole somewhere and dealing with them later may lead you to draw a blank about their maturity date. When this occurs you wind up being forced to pay a late fee. If you're willing to get organized, you are able to get your bills paid on time and never have to fret about incurring a late fee. This might take a little bit of time to set up, but only a couple of extra minutes per week to sustain.

Make sure you open your bills. A lot of bills come with unneeded inserts that just take up room in the place where you store your bills. Take out any inserts and recycle them with the outer envelope at once. This keeps clutter from stacking up and taking your focus off of the bill itself. Now take the bill and put it under the fold of the return envelope.

You are able to label 4 plastic bins so that each one makes up a week of the month. You are able to simply label them "Week 1," "Week 2," "Week 3," and "Week 4." Now take your prepared bills and find out the maturity date. If the maturity date is the 8th of the month, the bill goes in the week 2 bin. If the maturity date is the twentieth, the bill goes in the bin for week 3.

Do this with all of your bills and then place the bins on top of one another in order. When week 1 rolls around, take your bills out and pay them. Then put the bin on the bottom of the pile so that the week 2 bills are ready for you the next week.

Finally, once your bills are paid, you nevertheless have your financial statements to deal with. You want to keep them coordinated as well so that you are able to quickly locate them if you need to.

Buy a thirteen-pocket file folder. Mark the first twelve pockets with the calendar months of the year. The last pocket can be marked "taxes." Place your monthly financial statements into the pocket for that certain month.

When the year is complete, you are able to label the file folder with the year on the front and store it just in case you ever get audited.